Morning Chats
by GhirardelliFan
Summary: After an interrogation resulting from Neal's visit with Mentor at the end of Free-Fall, Neal has a heart-to-heart talk with June about trust.


Chats

When Neal finally left Room 525, he was exhausted. While he had been able to sprint to the hotel with adrenalin rushing through him, carrying him beyond his normal limits to find Kate, he was now left with only confusion and a week's worth of stress weighing on him.

Neal had been interrogated by "Mentor" for hours. He was perfectly willing to answer the questions the FBI asked him, none of them were personal and they gave him a fountain of information:

Had Peter ever asked him to do anything illegal? He didn't think so, he never saw the warrant to that warehouse that held the dead agent, but he assumed Peter wouldn't do anything beyond the strict government rules. Now he wasn't so sure.

Had Peter ever threatened him? That one was easy, he was threatened to be sent back to jail daily. It had become something of a game between the two partners, except it was a game Neal found incredibly annoying.

Neal had been pounded with questions about Peter for hours, most of them relating to Neal's work with Peter. Mentor never asked Neal anything about himself and very little about any of the cases Neal worked on with Peter, so what bothered Neal were the questions about Peter's use of Neal as a partner when solving cases. Mentor never asked about what Neal did, but _why_ Peter wanted him to do it. Once upon a time the answers made perfect sense to Neal: Peter wanted Neal to solve cases because Neal _could_ solve cases, and he could do it _well._

But again, now he wasn't so sure. In the past couple of months he had grown to trust Peter, El, and many of the White Collar Division agents through the FBI. Trust was hard to come by for Neal, a consequence from a life in crime. Neal's friendship and complete trust in Mozzie was born out of an accident involving a leak of incriminating information and Mozzie's self-sacrificing attempts to fix it; Neal's friendship, and later a loving relationship, with Kate was based on faith and love. Something that grew out of years of hard work and poor circumstances.

But Neal's partnership with Peter came from something completely different. Neal had been the one attempting to prove his trustworthiness to Peter. Peter never did anything to earn his trust back. When Neal had a problem, Peter shrugged it off and told him to toughen up. When Neal was in trouble, Peter turned away rather than allow himself to believe Neal had been framed.

Neal never thought anything about it until Mentor questioned him. It finally came down to whether Neal would be willing to trust Peter with his freedom. Mentor didn't care about whether or not Peter would give criminal information about Neal if he had the chance to, they seemed confident Peter would do that in a heartbeat.

What Mentor really wanted to know was if Peter was trying to set Neal up to fail by getting Neal to trust him, and then stabbing Neal in the back. Mentor's questioning suggested they found this to be an entirely unethical way of using Neal. They seemed to believe Peter wanted Neal to fail in order to receive a promotion later on; it would certainly be a highlight to Peter's career to get Neal put away for life by turning him in for countless "proved" forgeries and frauds.

Mentor actually seemed to genuinely want Neal to succeed, come clean when he could, and get on with his life in a way that would benefit the public the most: perhaps by working in a museum or teaching history to a classroom. The agents explained that the organization was meant to help ex-convicts get back on their feet when they were released from jail. When Peter took action that put Neal in the custody of the FBI, they had immediately become suspicious of his motives. Since then, they had watched Peter's actions concerning Neal and they were concerned.

Mentor seemed to be living up to its name. Was Peter living up to his promises?

.......

June's home was lit up when Neal turned the corner to the street. A look at the beautiful corner manor brought a smile to Neal's face and he imagined sleeping in his warm bed for a few hours before pulling his life back together.

Neal made it to the door of the manor and paused to pull out his keys. He looked at the house key for a second before swallowing a sudden tightness in his throat, these keys touched him more than they should. After being questioned until he distrusted everything and everyone around him, he would soon be in a place with at least two people who he knew trusted him as well.

Mozzie, Neal was certain, would be sleeping on his couch upstairs. Conspiracy theories would be covering the table and floor where he slept.

And June. Neal looked at the key in his hands and finally comprehended the trust the old lady had in him. When he first made it home last night, after his name was finally cleared, he truly expected to have his few possessions tossed onto the street. Most people would never trust a criminal who had his picture pasted across the front page of the country's largest paper, even if said criminal's name was cleared only a couple of days later.

But when Neal had knocked on the door the previous night, not even daring to try his key on the door, June was the first to open the door. She embraced him warmly before saying "welcome home."

That had been a beautiful homecoming, the first Neal had ever experienced. Now as Neal wiped his feet on the welcome mat in front of him, he focused on calming his raging mind.

June must have seem through the door because before Neal could insert his key, the door pulled open and June stood there smiling.

"Hello dear, are you going to stay home for more then a few minutes this time? You really should be resting right now." Neal looked past this woman's smile and tired eyes to see a worried friend.

"I'm sorry I ran out so fast last night. There was...a new development in a case I've been working on." Had it ever been this hard to lie? Of course, when you considered someone your friend. It was hard to even come close to breaking that trust with deceit.

June gave him a knowing smile before taking his arm and pulling him to the kitchen table. "Every now and then Byron would come home looking like you. It's a sure sign something is going on inside that head of yours. It might help if you told me what that is."

Neal leaned back as June left for the kitchen. "June, has there been anybody inside your home your since my arrest? I mean...in places where they shouldn't be? Your kitchen, or personal phone, for instance?"

"Of course, dear." Neal nodded and looked up as June sat down at the table with a two full coffees and a stack of pastries on a plate. "Eat up, you're looking way too thin."

Neal thanked her and took a bite of an apple turnover. As he chewed, he let one hand glide under the table, looking for any obvious bugs the police may have left.

"Oh honey, of course they were all over my home, and of course they tapped my phone and bugged my doors and tables, but you must remember that I lived with a felon for over twenty years." June winked at Neal. "The police came back when you were cleared to remove them, and I must say they were astonished when I handed them to them in a Ziploc baggy."

Neal couldn't decide whether to smile and the joke or lose last night's dinner for the stress he must have put June through. "June. I'm so sorry..."

"Now don't you give me any of that. Having you here..." June wiped an eye and looked at a picture of Byron on her wall. "Well, it brings me back to the old days. I wasn't a perfect person either, you remember that I played poker with the rest of them?"

Neal nodded and thought of what June was implicating. June took a sip of her coffee and went on. "Well, that was a long time ago. But every now and then I still get a thrill when I hear about a forged painting at a museum Byron frequented. And I can still tell the difference between a misguided, but good, person and somebody who only does something purely in malice or greed."

"I've done lot's of things for no more then greed, June. And I'm afraid things haven't improved a lot since my name cleared. In fact, I think my life is only getting more complicated." Neal frowned at the sunrise and took a sip of his coffee, thankful it was Saturday and he wouldn't have to work today. "You say you can tell the difference between a misguided person, and a malicious and greedy person?"

"Honey, like I said before, it might help if you talk about. I won't feel bad if you don't find yourself able to trust me, but I want you to know that on my side, I trust you."

Another pang went through Neal's chest as he clutched his coffee. He never had conversations like these, and the duplicity of a FBI partner wasn't something people generally discussed during breakfast. She certainly hit the trust issue on the spot though. She trusted him, but could he truly trust her?

"'It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.'"

June nodded, "Graham Greene, a smart man. I know you do trust, Neal, but I'm not going to pressure you into anything."

In that instant Neal took a leap of faith, looking for advice he didn't believe anybody could give him. "What do you see in Peter Burke?"

"Peter?" June looked shocked for a second, and shook her head. "That man is as honest as the day is long. Can I ask what happened?"

"Of course." Neal took a sip of coffee and proceeded to explain everything that happened that night. He told her about Kate and Mentor and being framed. It didn't make any sense now that Mentor had framed him, if they were telling the truth.

"That's the part I don't understand. Somebody framed you, and somebody paid or bribed that terrible man to steel the diamond in the first place. If not Mentor, or Peter, who?"

"It must be one of them, mustn't it?"

"Not at all, dear. Don't you see? Mentor has been watching Peter since he took you out of jail, they probably can't understand that Peter is so honest, he may only have the best intentions at heart. Looking at it that way, they're both in the right. They're checking up on each other to make sure you make it through this."

Shaking his head, Neal asked, "Then who has Kate? Its somebody with the FBI, somebody with a ring. Mentor seems to believe Peter knows where Kate is, and may have interacted with her before and after I got out of prison. Why would he do that?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if Peter did know where she is. But can you understand why he may be keeping her away from you? You received four more years on a prison sentence when trying to find Kate. Peter probably believes she's trouble."

June picked up a card from a deck on the edge of the table and placed it face up. It was the queen of hearts. When Neal picked it up, a card hiding beneath it slid into view. It was the Joker.

Neal smiled at June's perfect sleight of hand. "I do trust Kate. And I take responsibility for my own actions when I escaped from prison. It certainly wasn't Kate's fault."

"And you should take credit, but I believe Peter feels responsible for your actions as well. And Kate is a liability in all of this. I don't know about Mentor, but I do believe you can talk to Peter." A loud thump hit the front door and both June and Neal stood up.

"It must be that darn newspaper."

"I'll get it June." When Neal opened the door he smiled when he looked at the headline.

_Neal Caffrey Innocent. After a daring escape from a four-story office, Neal Caffrey stuck around to prove his innocence to New York. Full story on page two._

June spoke over his shoulder as he held the newspaper for a second. "I won't say the answers will come to you immediately, Neal. But I do believe they will come, and if you allow yourself to trust in others, you may find it works out in your favor."

June took the paper and looked over the large picture of him free-falling. "I must say, that was an impressive stunt. I can't believe they managed to catch it on camera."


End file.
